In My Opinion

Photo by Uditasree

Title: Photo by Uditasree
Source: Gardenia: A Review Shop by -Chrysalis_Realm
Genre: Short Story
Secondary/subgenre: Slice of Life
Mature: N
LGBTQIAP+: N
Status: Complete
First impressions: 36/40
Digging deeper: 89/100
Final thoughts: Complete

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*****

First impressions: 36/40

Title: 10/10
The word itself could have a cute, sweet, happy nostalgic connotation, or it could go in a sadder direction. Based on the combination of the cover and story description, I'm thinking cute and sweet here, and I like it.

Story description: 8/10
As with the title and cover, simplicity reigns here, and there's nothing wrong with that. Photos and memories. Love it.

I'm back and forth about the four short paragraphs, but the more I look at them, the more I think they work best in this format. Merging any of them together doesn't feel right to me.

Grammatically, the commas in the first and third paragraphs should be periods, but that's about it for problems there. In the second paragraph, you could add a comma after "Sometimes," and adding "the" before "hopes" and "them" after "relive" makes it flow a little better to me, but I think that's a stylistic choice. And in the last paragraph, you may want to change "captured" to "captures," since the rest of the blurb is in the present tense. I think it works either way, though, depending on what meaning you want to convey here.

Cover: 10/10
Again, this is a cute, sweet cover that's the perfect level of simplicity for a short story. A monochrome background, a realistic cartoon-style sketch of a hand holding a camera and snapping a picture—and that's all you really need. The title, subtitle, and your name are all in clear, easy-to-read font, sized, placed, and colored just right, and the little heart is a nice addition.

First chapter (and everything that came before it): 8/10
Foreword: In the second paragraph, I'd change "It" to "They," since you were talking about plural pictures and videos in the previous sentence. But otherwise, this is a short, sweet, and to the point disclaimer with your personal touch on it, and I like it.

Smile please: Aw, this is really cute! I love how you continue the theme of photos taken at different points of the family's life throughout the story. This isn't a tear jerker for me, although I saw in the comments it is for some people, but it's very heartwarming. It gives me happy nostalgia and makes me think about flipping through old scrapbook albums.

Grammatically, this story is pretty clean, with only minor errors here or there. Shorter sentences predominate, although there is some variety in sentence structure and length, but it wouldn't be a bad idea to merge a couple of sentences here or there to create a longer, more complex sentence. Section dividers would be a nice touch, too, at least before the glossary. You can just do a row of asterisks (*****) in center alignment, and that would set it apart nicely from the story. You could do that between the first and second scenes as well, although it's not necessary.

And I'll get into everything in more detail below. 🙂

*****

Digging deeper: 89/100

Cover & title: 10/10
See "First Impressions" feedback.

Story description: 4/5
See "First Impressions" feedback.